In 1990 there were 1775 black rhino. Black rhino remained locally abundant until the 1940s, despite the massive game culls in the tsetse fly control era. In the 1960s rhino were even reintroduced into hunted-out areas like Hwange National Park. And so, while the rest of Africa was losing its black rhino at an overall rate of 12 % per year the trend in Zimbabwe, especially the Zambezi Valley and Sebungwe areas, was actually positive, and the future looked secure.
Until 1981, Africa's largest game reserve, the 55 000 km? Selous, held 85 000 elephant and 3000 black rhino - the largest populations on the continent. Only 12 000 elephant and 200 rhino remain.
Here 3 500 rhinos have been reduced to less than 100 in under 15 years.
One hundred years later, in Zimbabwe, a tall, tired, khaki-clad game warden Glenn Tatham of Operation Stronghold was standing over the body of the 41st poacher killed by his game scouts since 1986. ?Zimbabwe has the single largest black rhino population left in Africa - a mere 1775 animals,' explains Tatham, ?and the majority live in the terribly vulnerable Zambezi valley and Sebungwe areas.' Vulnerable, because since July 1984, 439 Zimbabwe rhino have been poached by Zambian nationals crossing the Zambezi River which forms the international border between the two countries. Both poachers and scouts are playing for keeps now because this is the rhino's last stand in Africa and his time is fast running out.
Then, in a single afternoon in January 1985, six rhino were killed in the Lower Zambezi Valley. The war on rhino had suddenly moved south of the Zambezi. ?Saving rhino is mainly a question of protection. And that costs money', explained Rowan Martin of Zimbabwe's Department of National Parks. ?The minimum annual expenditure for protected area management - in an easily protectable area, requiring a single game ranger for every fifty square kilometres - is two hundred dollars per square kilometre. Anything less is just throwing away money,. We are spending only ten dollars a square kilometre and losing rhino.' The lower Zambezi holds one of only two black rhino populations still numbering over 400 animals. But with an area of 12 000 square kilometres, where Martin says they could use five times the present number of field staff, efficient protection would cost up to seven million US dollars a year for the lower Zambezi alone, in a country where an incredible 12 per cent of the land is in conservation areas. Obviously, there is no hope of meeting such costs. Since 1986, Operation Stronghold has been saving rhino by killing Zambian poachers, although its real task is detection and intervention. ?Each gang stays in the valley for an average ten days. Our job is to find and arrest, or if necessary, to kill poachers before it's too late for the rhino,' says Tatham. Black and white scouts, whose fighting experience in the bush goes back to opposite sides of the Rhodesian war for independence, are combining radio equipment, a helicopter, training and motivation with a clear-cut objective. Patrols can be on the trail of an armed gang within hours instead of days - and the consequences are often fatal. Nevertheless, 70 poached rhino carcases were found in 1987. Zimbabwe, too, is pulling back its line of defence: 284 rhino have been translocated to safer parks or behind the fences of private ranches in the midlands, the deep heart of the country away from the borders of Zambia and Mozambique.
Zambia's national parks are underfinanced, understaffed, and there is little training or motivation for antipoaching teams. With the explicit consent of corrupt government officials, poachers fearlessly supply the Lusaka-based trade with horn poached in
White rhino were extinct by the turn of the century in Zimbabwe.
Local poaching by seminomadic Herero tribesmen moving through Kaokoveld began in the 1970s, in what was then a vast, unprotected area, administered from afar by South Africa's Department of Bantu Affairs. The incentive to poach blossomed with the 1980 drought that left people destitute and killed 80 per cent of their cattle.
The local parks and conservation departments themselves are often a danger to the animals they proclaim to protect. In 1988, several game scouts with over 20 years of service in the Umfolozi or Hluhluwe Game Reserves in South Africa are serving time in prison - for poaching within those reserves.
The local parks and conservation departments themselves are often a danger to the animals they proclaim to protect: an estimated one-third of the rhinos poached in Kenya over the last ten vears were killed by employees of the Wildlife Department.
But today, Kenya has relocated 100 of its 150 remaining rhino to protect and study them in fenced, patrolled sanctuaries on both park and private lands. `The situation has stabilised since mid-1986 and there are now more known births than deaths,' said veterinarian Dr Dieter Rottcher. There are fenced sanctuaries in Nakuru, Aberdares, Tsavo and Meru National Parks and on private ranches like Solio, Lewa Downs, Ol Joli and Laikipia.
In 1987, South Africa put down on paper a national strategy to conserve and increase its black rhino and Namibia's. Bv establishing a `founder population' of Kenyan Diceros bicornis michaeli rhino in Addo Elephant National Park and reintroducing desert D. bicornis bicornis to Augrabies and Vaalbos National Parks after 136 years of extinction in the Cape, and redistributing Zululand D.b. minor black rhino in reserves throughout South Africa, the strategy is well on its way to having three of the four major subspecies prospering in South Africa. `Our goal now,' says Dr Martin Brooks of the Natal Parks Board, `is to breed up and protect 2000 D.b.minor, 2 000 bicornis and 100 michaeli in the region as quickly as possible.'
Diceros bicornis. In the 1960s rhino were even reintroduced into hunted-out areas like Hwange National Park.
But today, Kenya has relocated 100 of its 150 remaining rhino to protect and study them in fenced, patrolled sanctuaries on both park and private lands. `The situation has stabilised since mid-1986 and there are now more known births than deaths,' said veterinarian Dr Dieter Rottcher. There are fenced sanctuaries in Nakuru, Aberdares, Tsavo and Meru National Parks and on private ranches like Solio, Lewa Downs, Ol Joli and Laikipia.
In Kenya, Captain Willoughby collected 43 black rhino on safari and Count Teleki, 99
The alert for black rhino sounded only in 1980, with the World Wildlife Fund's 'Year of the Rhino'. A 1988 World Wildlife Fund discussion paper reports that WWF has spent more than four million Swiss francs - which tops two and a half million dollars since 1962, on 42 rhino projects, including 32 for black rhino.
Some black rhino and a remnant scattering of about 20 white rhino survived in Zululand., a lone female black rhino was seen in the Kruger National Park in 1936.
Some black rhino and a remnant scattering of about 20 white rhino survived in Zululand., a lone female black rhino was seen in the Kruger National Park in 1936.
In the years before 1880, Mr William Cotton Oswell bagged 89 rhino during an excursion into the interior of South Africa., Captain Cornwallis Harris could shoot two or three a day within view of his hunting camp. C.J. Andersson took 60 in a single season The last black rhino in the Cape was shot in 1853. Some black rhino and a remnant scattering of about 20 white rhino survived in Zululand., a lone female black rhino was seen in the Kruger National Park in 1936. The rhino story was sad testimony to the civilizing of Africa.
Rhino horn is really just a dense mass of compacted hair - not unlike the keratin of a buffalo hoof - that polishes up nicely. (lnterestingly, the age or sex of rhino cannot be estimated by horn size.)
At the turn of the century an estimated 600 desert rhino inhabited Kaokoveld in northern Namibia and there were another 600 or so in Damaraland to the south. By 1965, less than 100 black rhino remained in all of South West Africa/Namibia. Since the establishment of a Namibia Wildlife Trust rhino project in 1982, the rhino population in Kaokoveld and Damaraland has grown from 40 to 100. South West Africa/Namibia's rhino population of 400, including 350 in Etosha National Park, is now considered `stable'.
In theory, Hong Kong stopped imports in February 1979, Japan in November 1980 and Singapore in October 1986, which might explain why the North Yemen market for rhino horn dropped from a peak of 4 tons (or 1500 dead rhinos) in 1980 to about 400 kg per annum since 1986. (In 1982, Yemen prohibited the import, but not the export of rhino born.)
On the supply side, the killing of rhino and trade in horn are illegal practices in all African countries except Burundi, a trading hot spot for rhino and elephant products. All signatories of the first Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in 1976 banned trade in rhino horn.
Some scientists date the emergence of modern black and white rhino species to three or four million years ago, while others stretch their past to 19 to 23 million - or even 60 million - years ago. Whether Miocene or Pleistocene, Homo sapiens' earliest, earliest ancestors confronted the grunt of a shadow half-hidden in the browse: they couldn't have known that they would become the adult rhino's only enemy.
The present $3 to $6 million per annum market for rhino horn has its roots in earliest Babylonian, Egyptian and Greek cultures. Rhino horn was worth 63 cents per kilogram in the 1840s, $11 in 1950 and $300 in 1978. In 1988, the best horns, weighing between 1 ? and 3 kg, are worth $1000 per kilo or $500 per pound.
On the supply side, the killing of rhino and trade in horn are illegal practices in all African countries except Burundi, a trading hot spot for rhino and elephant products. All signatories of the first Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in 1976 banned trade in rhino horn. But of the 20 African countries that had rhino, five have not signed CITES.
In theory, Hong Kong stopped imports in February 1979, Japan in November 1980 and Singapore in October 1986, which might explain why the North Yemen market for rhino horn dropped from a peak of 4 tons (or 1500 dead rhinos) in 1980 to about 400 kg per annum since 1986. (In 1982, Yemen prohibited the import, but not the export of rhino born.)
Namibia, which is not a signatory to CITES, was the last country to allow trade in rhino horn, but since 1984 has voluntarily complied with CITES, as do the National Republics within South Africa.
When the discussion turned to the record of shocking indifference or sickening corruption of most African governments concerning wildlife, the speakers preferred not to be named: 'Trade bans and treaties are meaningless to corrupt government officials who are above the laws of their own lands and exploit their diplomatic pouches to transport illegal, banned rhino horn from Africa to the East,' says one. 'It is time to name names in spite of the over-sensitivity of black African governments ... to create public embarrassment and apply both diplomatic and economic pressure to stop poaching' says another. The local parks and conservation departments themselves are often a danger to the animals they proclaim to protect: an estimated one-third of the rhinos poached in Kenya over the last ten vears were killed by employees of the Wildlife Department. In 1988, several game scouts with over 20 years of service in the Umfolozi or Hluhluwe Game Reserves in South Africa are serving time in prison - for poaching within those reserves.
In theory, Hong Kong stopped imports in February 1979, Japan in November 1980 and Singapore in October 1986, which might explain why the North Yemen market for rhino horn dropped from a peak of 4 tons (or 1500 dead rhinos) in 1980 to about 400 kg per annum since 1986. (In 1982, Yemen prohibited the import, but not the export of rhino born.)
In theory, Hong Kong stopped imports in February 1979, Japan in November 1980 and Singapore in October 1986, which might explain why the North Yemen market for rhino horn dropped from a peak of 4 tons (or 1500 dead rhinos) in 1980 to about 400 kg per annum since 1986. (In 1982, Yemen prohibited the import, but not the export of rhino born.)
